This paper documents joblessness in OECD countries, provides a detailed diagnosis of structural employment barriers in Belgium, Korea and Norway by applying the OECD Faces of Joblessness methodology to the situation just before the COVID-19 crisis and discusses the policy implications. It shows...

There has been a strong interest in short-time work (STW) schemes during the global financial crisis. Using data for 23 OECD countries for the period 2004 Q1 to 2010 Q4, this paper analyses the quantitative effects of STW programmes on labour market outcomes by exploiting the country and time...

This paper provides guidance for developing country-specific policy recommendations from the broad policy principles of the new OECD Jobs Strategy. To this end, it identifies countries’ main policy challenges and develops broad policy packages to address them. It highlights the importance of...

Job creation has lowered unemployment, but the Belgian labour market still faces many challenges. Employment rates remain low, reflecting barriers to finding a job such as low levels of skills and weak work incentives. In addition, the changing nature of work will require faster adaptation of...

This note focuses on the design of fair and work-oriented unemployment benefits, with a specific focus on Belgium, a country in which the design of the unemployment benefits system has become the subject of an intense policy debate in recent years. After taking stock of the most recent...

This paper analyses the impact of employment protection (EP) on the composition of the workforce and worker turnover using a unique firm-level dataset for Italy. The impact of employment protection is analysed by means of a regression discontinuity design (RDD) that exploits the variation in EP...

This paper provides an overview of labour market resilience in the wake of the Great Recession of 2008-09 and the role played by macroeconomic and structural policies. The OECD unemployment rate has returned to close to its pre-crisis level, but the unemployment cost of the Great Recession has...

This paper analyses the effects of product market reforms in the short and medium term across 10 regulated industries and 18 advanced economies for the period 1998-2013 using internationally comparable firm-level data based on Orbis. It provides four key insights. First, product market reforms...